


Haunted

by Mcusekat



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Fake AH Crew, Gavin is a ghost, M/M, Magic is Real, halloween fic, pre crew
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 13:48:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12583256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mcusekat/pseuds/Mcusekat
Summary: Ryan Haywood was a fairly normal, well adjusted guy outside of work. The mad serial killer schtick was just that, a schtick, and it was extremely effective in driving fear into the hearts of everyone in Los Santos.So when, one morning, he opened his door to see a semi-transparent person sauntering down the hallway of his apartment, he was reasonably shaken.





	Haunted

  Ryan Haywood, infamous high level hitman better known by the pseudonym ‘The Vagabond,’ was a fairly normal, well adjusted guy outside of work. He had his moments, of course, but everyone did. The mad serial killer schtick was just that, a schtick, and it was extremely effective in driving fear into the hearts of everyone in Los Santos. As soon as he took off the mask he became a normal, well adjusted 30 year old man who loved sci-fi and played video games.

  So when, one morning, he opened his door to see a semi-transparent person sauntering down the hallway of his apartment, he was reasonably shaken. 

  He didn’t believe in ghosts, was the thing, so while his mind immediately jumped to ‘that's a ghost!’ he tried to explain it as reasonably as possible. But as he sat in his house, previous plans of grocery shopping abandoned, he could come up with no logical explanation for a fucking translucent human being in his hallway. Besides insanity, of course. Maybe his job was finally getting to him. He felt fine, but then again he didn’t figure that crazy people knew they were crazy. 

  When he ventured into the hallway he didn’t see the ghost. He climbed in his car and carried on as normal. He tried to dismiss this as an isolated incident. A trick of the light, his tired mind messing with his vision, but it stayed in the back of his mind. 

  The next time he saw a ghost was on a job. He was in the mountains near the Vinewood sign, a popular place for amateur ghost hunters due to it’s alleged popularity as a suicide spot among actors who can’t break into the business. So when he was walking along a hidden trail to a base where a mob boss was laying low and the ghost of a woman dressed like a 1920s flapper crossed his path he let out a yelp and fell backwards. The woman looked just as startled as him, and disappeared into a cloud. Ryan stood up and brushed himself off. He was unnerved, he felt like there was thousands of pairs of eyes in the trees just watching him. He had a job to get done though, so he pressed on, mildly terrified the whole way. 

  He did the job quickly, professionally, but stole one of the man’s bikes to make a quick escape. When he gets back to his apartment he took a hot shower and watched some mindless television to get his mind off the spirit.

  It was months before Ryan saw another spirit. The incidents hadn’t been forgotten, but had been shoved into the back of his mind and ignored in favor of more important things. He was getting bigger in Los Santos. His reputation preceded him, of course, but he was being hired by bigger names, killing bigger names.  LSPD had a $500,000 bounty on his head. He was a busy man, too busy to deal with ghosts.

  But when the ghost of a British kid invited himself into Ryan’s apartment it became difficult to focus on work. 

  His most recent job had barely gone well. Apparently his target had gotten wind that Ryan was after him and had doubled his guard count and bunkered down in a safe house in the middle of nowhere, effectively doubling the expected time for the job to be completed. The guards gave him hell, too. He was battered and bruised and had been nearly shot more times than he was frankly comfortable with. 

  His whole body ached. He hobbled to his bathroom, his eyes barely open, and made quick work of cleaning himself before collapsing into his bed. Despite the sheer exhaustion he felt, he couldn’t sleep. Something was amiss. Getting out of bed seemed like an insurmountable task so he initially decided to just let whoever had invaded his apartment kill him, but the sole shred of self preservation he had at the moment prevailed. He climbed up and grabbed his weapon, then exited his room.

  Sat on his couch, watching his muted TV, was the spirit of what looked to be a twenty-something year old. Ryan lowered his gun. He was too tired to be scared, mostly just annoyed. He just wanted to sleep. Just sleep. Was that too much to ask?

  The ghost turned around and looked at Ryan, wide eyed. 

  “Oh, hello! I’m Gavin. Gavin Free.” he said. 

  Ryan stared at the thing for a moment. “Hi?” he said, unsure how to greet a ghost. 

  “A little birdy told me that you’re able to talk to ghosts,” he said, seeming positively thrilled with the fact that Ryan could see him. “I need your help with something.”

  “No,” Ryan said. 

  The ghost balked. “No?”

  “You heard me. No. I’m not dealing with this.”

  The ghost balked at him. “You must!”

  “I  _ must _ ?”

  “Yes! If you don’t help my I can’t get my body back from Edgar.”

  Ryan ran his hands over his face. “This isn’t happening. I’m exhausted, this is some weird fucking dream I’m having. I’m going to sleep, and when I wake up you won’t be here anymore.” He turned around and slammed the door shut behind him. 

  He woke up at noon the next morning, having mostly forgotten the whole ordeal, until he opened his door and saw Gavin still sitting on his couch, cross legged, playing with a frayed string on the cushion.

  “Oh good, you’re still here,” Ryan muttered. He walked to his kitchen and started making coffee. Gavin followed and sat at the counter.

  “Will you at least hear me out?”

  Ryan sighed. “Fine, whatever. Make it quick, I’m busy today.”

  “Well, I’m a witch-”

  “Of course.”

  “And I’m one of the best with dark magic. Edgar Coal, my teacher- you probably know him better as the mob boss- was angry that I surpassed him so I fled and hid, knowing he would try to kill me. However, he was able to find an archaic spell that pulled my spirit from my body. He’s trying to find my body now to finish me off.”

  Ryan sipped his coffee. “And how do I play into all of this?”

  “Well, you have a reputation for murdering powerful people. When I felt my ghost being forced out of my body I granted you the ability to see ghosts. So you could help me kill Coal and put me back in myself.”

  “That’s awful presumptuous of you,” Ryan said, frowning. 

  “I’ll pay you, you nob. Onde million, in cash. As soon as I have my spirit back in my body I can pay you in full.”

  Ryan felt a lot more okay with the idea at the amount of money involved. “How do I know you’re good for your word?”

  “You can look me up. I have a very good reputation in the world. I mostly do hacking under the pseudonym ‘Vav.’ You have time to decide, of course, but this needs to get done before Coal finds my body and kills me.”

  He’d actually heard of Gavin before. He was a great hacker, but he worked exclusively under Edgar. “I’ll do it,” he said. “I’m just about done with my current job, I should be able to start yours tomorrow.”

  Gavin grinned. “Brilliant!”

~

  For whatever reason, Gavin was still in his apartment when Ryan got back. “Why are you still here?”

  Gavin shrugged. “Don’t know where else to go.”

  “Your house?”

  Gavin looked uncomfortable. “I lived with Edgar.”

  “What about where your body is?” 

  “I don’t like seeing myself all dead like.”

  Ryan sighed. “Fine. Just don’t cause any trouble.”

  Gavin smiled at him. Ryan moved past him to the kitchen and grabbed a diet Coke, then sat on the couch as far from Gavin as possible.

  He had a lot of questions for the man, particularly concerning life as a ghost. If he had been torn out of his body around the time when Ryan received his ghost vision, he would have been a ghost for three months. Possibly more. He was still coming to terms with the fact that ghosts- and magic, apparently- existed so his mind was reeling with curiosity.

  “What... “ Ryan started. He was somewhat worried about offending Gavin. The lad didn’t seemed very bothered by the fact that he was technically dead, but he couldn’t say for sure. It was hard to read body language when Gavin was partially see through. “What’s it like being a ghost?”

  Gavin shrugged. “Boring. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep. All I’ve been doing up until yesterday was following people around and trying to find you.”

  Ryan shrugged. “Can you talk to other ghosts?”

  “Yeah. They aren’t really a chatty bunch, though. Not the ones I’ve met at least.”

  Ryan ruminated on this. His phone buzzed on the table and he picked it up. It was a text from his money laundering guy saying he was good to deposit the cash.

  “Well, I have an errand to run. I’ll start looking into Edgar tonight.”

  “Where are you going?”

  Ryan shrugged his coat on. “The bank.”

  Gavin perked up. “Can I come with you?”

  Ryan frowned at him. “I guess?” he said, not entirely sure why he would want to in the first place.

  Still, Gavin smiled and bounded after him.

  They reached the garage where Ryan’s vehicle sat. Ryan climbed in before looking at the passenger door curiously, wondering if Gavin would open it. He didn’t, apparently electing to just appear in it instead. 

  It took him some time to deposit all the checks as he had to do many small transactions. Deposits over ten thousand dollars were recorded by the IRS, so Ryan made several nine thousand dollar deposits into several separate bank accounts that used pseudonyms of his. It was tedious, but getting investigated by the IRS would be even more of a pain in his ass.

  After he was finished he turned to Gavin, who was leaning boredly on the wall beside the ATM.

  “Let’s go,” he said. 

  As soon as they were back in Ryan’s car, Gavin started talking. “Do you mind if we make a detour? I have some things that will help you with the investigation.” He typed an address into the GPS on Ryan’s car.

  Ryan followed the address to a dingy storage facility on the edge of town. He noticed that there were no security cameras, just a few large, armed guards at the front gate and scattered through the facility. Gavin gave Ryan the code to get in, then the code to his unit. 

  Ryan first noticed that Gavin’s unit was like some low-budget satanic horror movie set, with random sigils and markings all over the walls, as well as jars of things scattered about. Most surprising was Gavin’s body slumped against the back wall. 

  “That’s you,” Ryan said dumbly, surprised. 

  Gavin looked a bit embarrassed at his body. He pulled a tarp that appeared to have specks of dried blood on it over his body and demanded Ryan not look. 

  “It’s not like you’re naked or anything.”

  “Still, it’s weird.”

  Ryan shrugged. “So what am I looking for?”

  Gavin pointed to a box that held a variety of items; documents filed neatly in marked folders, hard drives labeled, gigabyte sized thumbdrives, and even photographs of locations. 

  “Edgar wasn’t just my magic tutor. Before I got big I would do security stuff for him in exchange for him teaching me magic. When I figured out he was planning to kill me I took as much information from him as possible, all on these hard drives. As far as I know he doesn’t know I have all this so it should be relatively accurate. I’ve got all of his safehouses in here as well.”

  Ryan loaded the box into his trunk. 

  “You’ll have to tell me where to start with all this” Ryan said. “There’s a lot of shit in there.”

  Gavin nodded. “Of course,” Gavin said chipperly. 

~

  Ryan spent the rest of the day in front of his computer. Gavin hovered beside him, pointing him to where the most important files could be found. He consolidated them all on his own terabyte hard drive. To Gavin’s credit, his work was very thorough. He had every security camera, every guard post, every motion light sensor marked on the blueprints of 20 buildings. Ryan intended to commit them to memory before he pursued Edgar. Edgar was a powerful man, and one of his most high profile targets yet. He had more resources at his disposal than ever before and he intended to make use of them. The cleaner this hit could be, the better. 

  By the time he was too tired to continue it was four hours later and he’d only sorted through two of five hard drives. He still had 10 thumb drives (which Gavin told him has less important information than the hard drives, but were still worth a look) and tons of papers to look through. The papers were neatly sorted, though, so it would be less of a challenge.

  He ended his evening with Chinese takeout and a book on his couch. Gavin draped himself over the loveseat and stared at the TV. Ryan ignored him for the most part. Not maliciously, but Gavin was a client and Ryan wanted to keep work off the mind. 

  He retired to bed early but couldn’t sleep- there was too much going on in his head. Too much had happened in just a few days and his mind had undergone a complete shift in values. Magic was real, apparently, as were ghosts, witches, and god knows what else. Were vampires real? Werewolves? Fucking  _ unicorns _ ? Who was he to say now, just three days ago he would have laughed in the face of someone who said witches were real. He buried his face in his pillow and sighed. Nights like that night made him wish he still drank; he could use a stiff shot of whiskey. 

  He couldn’t say for sure when he finally fell asleep, but he woke up several hours later when the sun was just rising. He went about his daily routine; coffee, breakfast, then a searing hot shower, and settled back down at his computer. Gavin was lying on his sofa watching one of several mass produced singing shows, but he looked uninvested. 

  “Morning,” Gavin muttered. He looked bored out of his mind.

  “Morning.”

  He booted up the computer and plugged the third hard drive in. 

  Gavin sat in the seat beside him and propped his head up on the desk. 

  They worked for several hours on just the one hard drive. This one was filled with blueprints and locations of all of Edgar’s safe houses. Ryan couldn’t help but feel some excitement at this job. Gavin practically had the man’s life story in these files. After his last job turned out to be a terrible fiasco he was excited for one that promised to be easy and predictable.

  He was looking over the blueprints to the main house when he noticed Gavin had a sort of sad look on his face. 

  “That was our room,” he said, somewhat mournfully. 

  “You and Edgar were together?” Ryan asked, a little too quickly.

  “Sort of. It was more a friends-with-benefits-slash-open-relationship thing. You can use sex as a way to get energy for spells. Sex or blood, or both if you like. It was convenient to just have a go at each other rather than track down some poor bitty and drain her blood.”

  “Are you… sad about leaving him?” Ryan cringed mentally at his awkward phrasing. However, it had been years since he’d had a personal conversation with someone. 

  Gavin shrugged. “I mean, more pissed that the bastards trying to kill me. I always knew he was a bastard but he was never an arse to me. I wasn’t in love with him or anything, but I feel a bit betrayed.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ryan said. It came out sounding dishonest, but he meant it. It was an odd situation Gavin had gotten himself into, but he seemed to be a good guy and Edgar was a piece of shit. 

  “Don’t be, you sod. It’s not your fault,” he said. He leaned into Ryan’s side and bumped his shoulder with his own. He felt an odd breezy feeling from that, like wind against bare skin, but there was definitely contact as his body had moved when Gavin pushed him. 

  The scientist in Ryan, who’d finally come to accept that ghosts and magic were real, was curious about Gavin.

  Ryan reached over and touched Gavin’s arm. He didn’t phase through him, but still felt the beezy feeling. Besides the odd sensation, it was like touching a person, without the underlying warmth. 

  “What’re you doing?” Gavin asked, curious.

  “It’s just weird. It’s not what I imagined touching a ghost would be like.”

  Gavin looked curious. “What’s it like?” 

  Ryan pondered over his wording for a moment. It was difficult to explain as he hadn’t touched anything like it before, so the closest comparison he could come up with was “Like a human cloud.”

  Gavin balked. “A what?”

  Ryan scowled. “I don’t know. It’s like, you’re still solid but you’re cold and breezy. Does it not feel that way when you touch yourself?”

  Gavin smirked, and Ryan rolled his eyes preemptively at the response he knew was coming. “I haven’t wanked as a ghost, yet.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said, but he was suddenly curious as to whether ghosts could get boners. *n an attempt to maintain some semblance of normalcy, though, he didn’t ask.

  “I really just feel the same as my old self. I feel lighter, but otherwise normal.”

  Ryan shook his head. He was still trying to find some rational explanation for all of this and it just made his brain hurt. 

  “Odd, innit?” Gavin said. “I’ve been curious about all this too. When I first turned into a ghost I could hardly figure myself out. It took me a week to learn how to actually touch stuff and not go right through it.”

  Ryan listened, interested. “What’s it like, then? Like, do you get hot or cold, or hungry, or tired? When you do that teleporting thing does it sap energy?”

  Gavin shook his head. “No. None of that. Once you learn how to do it, which is a bit tricky, it’s easy.”

  Ryan shook his head. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

  “It’s magic, it’s not supposed to be explainable.”

  “Everything has a scientific explanation.”

  “You’re thinking about it too much. Some things in the universe can’t be explained.”

  Ryan sighed and looked back at the computer screen, choosing to not respond. Gavin leaned closer to him to see the screen as he scrolled through the blueprints. 

  Ryan finished transferring all the data over around noon that day.

  He sat back, glad to have it done with. He took a lunch break before sitting back at his desk and formulating an actual plan of attack. According to Gavin he had one house, one apartment, and 18 safe houses around Los Santos and it’s bordering towns. He only used 3 of the safe houses, though, the others were for his employees. That was still five places he had to stake out, with two being in heavily populated areas. He figured he could put cameras up in those areas, though, but the three safe houses were in rural spots.

  “So, if he’s definitely in this building I should be able to just go in there and shoot him, right?” Ryan asked.

  Gavin chuckled. “It’s not that easy. He’s a powerful blood magician. He uses archaic runes and such to protect all of his safe houses. You’ll get magic protection before you go after him.”

  Ryan sighed. “Magic protection? Against powerful magics? That doesn’t sound like something I can do, or that I would trust myself to do.”

  “I can’t do anything while I’m a ghost,” Gavin said. “I know someone that can help us, if you don’t mind bringing another person into the operation.”

  “Who?”

  “He goes by Rimmy Tim.”

  Ryan blinked. “Rimmy Tim?”

  “He’s an odd duck, but he’s damn good at his job, and trustworthy. He’s a good friend of mine from my coven. If you don’t think you can do a high level protection spell then he’s your only choice.”

  “Fine,” Ryan grumbled, and Gavin wrote down Rimmy Tim’s phone number on a slip of paper.

~

  He met Rimmy Tim in a dusty bar outside of town. Ryan didn’t drink, but he ordered a pint for blending in purposes while he waited. 

  It had been difficult to explain the situation when he contacted Rimmy Tim first. He had phrased his message like “Hey, you don’t know me but your friend- who is currently a ghost but not dead- does. Can you do magic on me?”

  And Rimmy Tim only asked for a form of verification that Ryan knew Gavin and nothing else.

  Now, Ryan would never claim to be a fashion expert, nor would he ever claim to be judgemental on what people chose to put on their bodies. But when a man walked in wearing a purple suit jacket, an orange tee shirt, a white cowboy hat,and gaudy jewelry, it was difficult to not judge.

  “That’s him,” Gavin said, nudging Ryan. 

  “Ah,” Ryan replied, barely managing to hide the disdain in his voice. 

  Ryan gestured to Rimmy Tim, and the man grinned wide before coming over to him. 

  “Ryan! Pleasure to meet you, buddy!” He shook Ryan’s hand enthusiastically before slipping into the seat across from him. 

  “You too,” Ryan said awkwardly. 

  “And Gavin,” he said in a lower voice sending a smile to the ghost. “So, tell me everything I’m allowed to know about all this. I know it’s a faux pas or whatever to ask but it’s a weird ass situation you’ve gotten yourself into.”

  Gavin told him pretty much everything, about how Edgar was planning to kill him and looking for his body as they spoke, and how he granted Ryan the ability to see ghosts and enlisted his help killing Edgar. When he finished Rimmy Tim leaned back in his seat and eyeballed Ryan. 

  “So I just need to put a powerful magic resistance spell on you, then? I can do that,” he said. He took a napkin and scribbled down a location and time. “I’ll need a couple days to get the shit but I should be ready by then.”

  “That’s fine, I still have some investigating to do before I’m ready to act anyways.”

  “Perfect, so it all works out. Here’s my number. Give it three or so days, then text me whenever you’re ready to be blessed.”

  Rimmy Tim slid him a horrible looking purple business card with orange Playball font text. 

  The drive back was quiet. Gavin was slumped in his seat, playing with the hem of his shirt idly. “You okay?” he asked. 

  Gavin shrugged. “I just can’t wait until this is over with,” Gavin said. He stretched his limbs in the car. “Bit tired of being a ghost.”

  Ryan chuckled.. “Well, tomorrow I’ll start the stakeouts, and as soon as I’m sure where he’s staying I’ll have your friend do the spell and I’ll kill him. I’m assuming killing him won’t put you back in your body, though. Is there some kind of potion or something I’ll need to grab?”

  Gavin nodded. You’ll need to find the liquid he used in the first spell. It’ll be a blue liquid, most likely. And quite a bit of it. It’s probably at his main house, where he cast the spell in the first place. After that you’ll need to pour it down my throat.”

  “Pour it down your throat?” Ryan said. 

  “Yep. Right down my gullet.”

  “Won’t that kill you? Or get water in your lungs at the very least.”

  “It’s not water. The liquid should absorb into my body and suck my ghost back in.”

  Ryan shook his head. “Okay,” he said doubtfully. It didn’t make sense, but it was Gavin’s funeral if he drowned.

  When they got back to the apartment Ryan pulled a false back from his closet where all his guns were stashed away. He selected two and got to work cleaning them. 

  He disassembled the first pistol and laid it out to be cleaned. 

  “Are those what you’re going to bring to kill Edgar?” Gavin asked as he examined the assembled one.

  “Yeah. Why?”

  Gavin shrugged. He picked up the gun and turned it over in his hands, tracing his fingers over where the serial number had been sanded down. It was obviously a heavily used weapon. In fact, it was Ryan’s main gun. He’d had it for years, it was one of the first guns he had obtained all those years ago when he as just starting out. 

  Gavin set the gun down on the table and looked at Ryan. “It’s odd to think of how many people this gun has probably killed.”

  Ryan chuckled. “Not as much as you probably think, I’m sure.”

  “What’s your estimate, then. Just with this one gun.”

  Ryan shrugged. “Probably around 10.”

  “You don’t think 10 is a lot?”

  “I’ve killed somewhere between 100-200 people total. 10 is pretty insubstantial compared to that.”

  Gavin balked. “You don’t even know how many people you’ve killed?”

  “When you start using explosives the numbers get fuzzy.”

  “I didn’t know you used explosives,” Gavin said. 

  Ryan shrugged again, more involved in cleaning the gun than talking to Gavin. “I don’t leave calling cards behind or anything. They probably assumed the explosions were done by someone else, because how could they connect the crimes to me if they didn’t see me do it?”

  Gavin hummed. “Makes sense, I suppose,” he said. 

 “You said you’re a hacker, right?”

  Gavin nodded.

  “Have you ever killed anyone?”

  Gavin shook his head no. “I’ve seen Edgar kill before, though. I don’t think I’d have trouble doing it, though. It was just Edgar’s thing.”

  Gavin didn’t seem to be afraid of the subject, so Ryan pressed him more. “How did you meet Edgar?”

  “Oh, I was 18 and just getting into magic. I was quite good at it and word spread. He invited me to his coven, offered to pay for my plane ticket and all, and I accepted.”

  Ryan raised his eyebrows. “So you flew overseas and moved in with a strange man you barely knew?”

  “Yeah. I mean, I was a teenager. I was just happy to have the chance to leave the town I lived in. I’m sure you did something reckless as a teenager, as well.”

  Ryan, who had driven to Los Santos in a stolen car with only one grand and a gun to his name at age 19, realized he didn’t really have a leg to stand on. “And how long were you with Edgar?”

  “Five years.”

  “So you’re 23?”

  Gavin nodded. Ryan wasn’t sure why he was bothered by their age difference.

  “How old are you?”

  “31.”

  Gavin’s eyes widened. “ _ Thirty-one! _ ”

  Ryan frowned at him. “Yes, 31. Why is that so shocking to you?”

  Gavin stared at him for a moment before shrugging again. 

  Ryan sensed that Gavin wanted to drop the subject, so he obliged. But he was quite curious as to why his age had bothered Gavin so much.

  “So, when your friend puts the spell on me, how long will it take to go into full effect?”

  Gavin thought about the question a minute. “Immediately, though if you’re worried you can probably wait until the day after.”

  Ryan nodded. “Good idea. That will give me ample time to prepare. We should start working out how to do it. Like, what time of day would be best for me to strike, etc.”

  Gavin told him about Edgar’s habits. He was a night owl, so early morning would be best. He also told him about his guard rotation, and how Edgar was overconfident in his own abilities but he still kept three armed guards near him at all times. They usually carried small pistols, silenced in his houses.

  After Gavin explained everything he knew, he felt confident. Gavin was very observant, apparently. He had everything down to a tee. It almost seemed like he’d been planning this for awhile. 

  Ryan shook the thought out of his head. He was a contract killer, even if Gavin had lied to him it didn’t matter, the only thing that did was that he got his job done and got paid. The idea of Gavin lying to him stung, though. He had gotten along with Gavin, and genuinely enjoyed his company. He had to remember, though, that when you’re in a business where most of your money is made by hurting other people, you’d be hard pressed to find an honest person. He just wondered why Gavin lied in the first place. Ryan didn’t give a fuck about motive as long there was cash. Maybe he was a compulsive liar, Ryan thought. 

  He looked up at Gavin and sighed. He was looking at Ryan quietly, curiously. “What’s wrong?”

  Ryan shook his head. “Nothing. Are we done here?”

  Gavin nodded, but he looked a little startled. “Okay.”

~

  “You want me to come?” Gavin asked the next day. It was an easy job, all he had to do was drive around and plant four cameras, he wasn’t entirely sure why Gavin wanted to come anyways.

  “It’s probably best if you stay here,” he said. 

  Gavin’s shoulders sagged. “Okay,” he said. 

  Ryan didn’t think much of it while he placed the cameras, but on the hour long hike up to the first stake out point the interaction made it’s way to the forefront of his mind.

  He’d brushed Gavin off brusquely. He hadn’t thought much of it, but the look Gavin had given to him was like Ryan had slapped him. Gavin liked Ryan, in a friendly way. If Ryan had been brushed off by someone he viewed as a friend as carelessly as he had he would feel pretty shit afterwards too. He felt like he should apologize. 

  Then again, he had to wonder what relationship he wanted with Gavin. Were they friends, even? Gavin was his current employer, Ryan was doing a job for him. What need would he have to mend their relationship, except to make his apartment a little less awkward until the job was finished and they parted ways. 

  Ryan reached the stakeout point and set the camera up. He would have to hike back up and retrieve it in another 24 hours to review the tape, just in case it was discovered it couldn’t be traced back to him. Once it was ready he sat down on a fallen trunk and rested.

  He liked Gavin too, was the problem. It was difficult to admit because Ryan hadn’t actually cared about someone in a while, but he liked having Gavin around. The loneliness was overbearing sometimes, and having someone even just quietly sitting next to him helped. Even so, he was a charming lad with a cheery demeanor.

  It was with an odd sense of dread that Ryan realized that, when Gavin left his life after the job was done that he would be crushed. 

  He needed to make amends, he thought. He planned on doing it once he got back.

~

  He got home that evening. Gavin was sprawled on the couch boredly, but when Ryan entered he jumped up. “Hey Rye,” he said. He climbed up and trailed Ryan to the kitchen where he watched him unpack quietly. 

  Ryan was going to talk to him. He mentally prepared a speech in his mind, but was cut short when Gavin initiated the conversation. 

  “What did I do?” Gavin asked quietly.

  “What do you mean?” Ryan asked, panicking..

  “Don’t play dumb. You’ve been basically ignoring me since yesterday.”

  Ryan sighed and shook his head. “I just feel like you’re lying to me.”

  Gavin’s shoulders dropped. “Lying? About what?”

  “About how long you’ve been planning to kill Edgar.”

  Gavin was quiet. “I wasn’t lying to you, just… not telling you the whole story. I-”

  Ryan shook his head again. “I don’t care, Gav. I don’t care about motive, I’m not sure why you felt the need to lie anyways. It’s fine, don’t worry about it. Just drop it.”

  Gavin looked struck. “I… Ryan…” was all he could say.

  Ryan turned away from him, hoping to end the conversation, but apparently that was the boost that Gavin needed to get the words out. “I don’t want to never see you again after this,” he said. “I like you… a lot...”

  Ryan swallowed. “Drop it, Gavin. At least until this is all over,” he said. His heart felt like it weighed a hundred pounds, though, and it took all he had to stop himself from asking what the  _ hell  _ that meant. 

 Gavin dropped it, though, and Ryan was grateful for that. 

  They spent the rest of the evening not quite avoiding each other but now knowing what to say, either. Ryan rounded out his evening with a long shower and several hours of contemplating in his bed. He couldn’t believe what Gavin had said. He turned over in his bed and buried his face in his pillow. There was no misconstruing his words, Gavin wanted a relationship with him. And Ryan couldn’t say he didn’t want it either.

  The scene kept replaying in his head; he didn’t get much sleep that night.

~

  Gavin was laying on the couch when he woke up. 

  “Morning,” he greeted before surpassing him for the fridge. He was exhausted. He couldn’t say for sure when he finally fell asleep but it seemed like mere seconds before his alarm clock was going off.

  Gavin sat up and watched him. “Good morning.”

  Ryan grabbed a protein bar out of the fridge and sat at the table, munching it slowly. He was acutely aware of Gavin’s eyes on him. He finally turned to look at him after several minutes of his staring. 

  “What?”

 “I just… I want to be honest with you from here on out. Can I tell you what all really happened?”

  Ryan sighed. “Fine. If it matters to you, fine.”

  Gavin sat across from him. Ryan listened quietly to his whole story. No clever quips, no interruptions, and Gavin seemed to be grateful for it. He tells him about his complicated relationship with Edgar. He was a legitimate psychopath. He tortured, raped, killed civilians just to get his rocks off and, while he never did anything to Gavin, Gavin despised him. He was also incredibly possessive of Gavin. He would never commit to a relationship but expected Gavin to only sleep with him. Gavin had planned on offing him since the first week he’d lived with the man, but wanted to learn as much as he could about magic, the criminal underground, et cetera before then. When the time finally came he found out that Edgar had been planning on killing him as well. Edgar never found out his plan, though, and had just grown jealous that he was a more powerful magician. Gavin hadn’t lied about that.

  “I didn’t lie to you. Ever. I just… didn’t tell you about me planning to kill him.”

  “Why?” Ryan asked, somewhat baffled. “I do this for a living, why do you think I would care if you had been planning it since before he wanted to kill you.”

  “I told you I like you. I didn’t want you to think I was some jilted lover or something,” Gavin said. He nervously scratched the back of his arm.

  Ryan shook his head. In the short time he’d known Gavin he had learned that he wasn’t a great planner. Hell, his entire life depended on Ryan cooperating with him, which was a hell of a think to bank on, so he decided to save himself the breath and not reply to that at all. 

  What was more troubling was the fact that Gavin had, evidently liked him since they first met.

  He sighed and stood up. He’d finished his protein bar and had shit to do today besides sit around with Gavin and have a heart to heart. 

  He grabbed his car keys off the hook and turned to Gavin. “Do you want to come with me to get the cameras?”

  Gavin perked up. “Sure,” he said, hurrying to follow Ryan out the door. 

~ 

  Ryan watched the videos on ten times speed, starting with the apartment. Gavin sat beside him, keeping an eye out for anyone who looked even remotely like Edgar to enter the building. The house tapes were easier. In both videos they got no hit, so Ryan put in the next tape which was his first most used base deep in the forests to the east of Los Santos. 

  They both watched somewhat boredly as hours upon hours of the same video of a cabin and shrubbery played on the monitor. Until finally, at around the 12 hour mark of the video, a person on a dirt bike arrived with a tote. Another guard met him at the door and he handed him his tote bag, received cash, and sped off. 

  Ryan was sure that was where Edgar was. He skimmed through the final video in case but the second safe house was dead as well. Edgar was in the first one. 

  He spent the remainder of his night going over the blueprints and any other files Gavin had on that safe house. 

  After he felt well prepared he send Jeremy a text telling him he was ready whenever he was, then retired to bed early to try to get the sleep that he missed out on the night before.

~

 Gavin’s eyes widened. “So you’re going today?”

  Ryan nodded. “And I’ll have Edgar dead by tomorrow afternoon.”

  Gavin grinned toothily at him. “And I’ll be a person again.”

  Gavin talked all the way to Rimmy Tim’s place. He was in a great mood, practically glowing. Ryan couldn’t help but feel excited for him too. He promised to buy him take out as soon as he was a human again to make up for him having to watch Ryan eat it every single day. Gavin seemed excited to eat Chinese food again.

  When they arrived at Rimmy Tim’s place the man himself was in front greeting him. His base of operations was another storage facility on the outskirts of town. Ryan briefly wondered if Gavin had gotten the idea of using a storage facility from Tim or if the storage unit business was just bolstered by witches looking for a place to do magic. 

  Rimmy opened the gate for them and showed them to his unit. It was a large unit in the very back, and when he opened it up Ryan found it to be somewhat like Gavin’s but more organized and lacking in unconscious bodies laying around.

  “Sit here,” Tim said, pointing to a circle drawn on the ground in sidewalk chalk. 

  Ryan obeyed. 

  “Now, I practice chaos magic, a form of left hand magic. A little something you should know about magic is the power of nicknames and personas. For example, my name is Jeremy but when I do magic I use my alter ego, Rimmy Tim. The stronger you believe in your alternate self, the more powerful you become. From here until the end of the casting I will refer to you as the Vagabond. You will think of yourself as the Vagabond. Got it?”

  Ryan nodded. “Yep.”

  “Great. Now get naked.”

  Ryan balked. “What?”

 “Naked. I can get naked too if it makes you feel more comfortable.”

  “I’m not sure it would. Why do I need to be naked?”

  Rimmy Tim, or Jeremy, rolled his eyes. “I’m doing the spell on you, not your clothes. Get ‘em off.”

  “Can I leave my boxers on, at least?”

  Rimmy Tim sighed laboriously. “I guess. Just wear those boxers when you do the job, just in case.”

  Ryan stripped down to his boxers, making quite sure that he didn’t look at Gavin in the process. However, he caught his eyes while he walked back into the circle. Gavin had been staring with wide eyes. As soon as Ryan caught him, though, he looked away.

  The spell began. Rimmy Tim started walking around him, saying something quite dramatic-sounding in Latin. He occasionally splashed him with some liquid that smelled good but burned to the touch and was very quickly absorbed into his skin. He ignored it. He was playing the part of his persona, now, as Rimmy Tim had told him to do and part of that was to show no fear or pain.

  Rimmy Tim stopped chanting and began methodically placing candles around the lines of the circle and lighting them. Ryan watched him as he did it. Once all six candles were lit Rimmy Tim muttered another string of Latin words and dumped the rest of the liquid over Ryan’s head. 

  The candles started going out in a circle starting with the one just to Ryan’s right and moving clockwise until it reached a single candle right in front of him. 

  “Pick it up with both hands and blow it out.”

  Ryan did. 

  “And there you go, man!” Jeremy said, clapping his hands once. “Just don’t shower until after the job is done and you have full and complete protection from all forms of magic- black, white, warding, plants, all that good shit.”

  “What if I sweat it off in my sleep.”

  “You can’t. You have to scrub all that liquid off with soap and water. Now put your clothes back on and get out of here,” Jeremy said, patting Ryan on the back.

  Ryan dressed quickly. Once they were out of the door Gavin looked over at him and smirked before looking away. 

  “What?”

  “The spell might’ve been more effective if you were completely nude,” he said. 

  Ryan rolled his eyes but chuckled. “I’m half convinced you paid him to have me take all my clothes off,” Ryan joked.

  Gavin grinned at him before climbing in the car. 

  As soon as they got back to the apartment, though, Ryan began getting ready for the job. He laid out his guns and ammo, sharpened his knife, and set out his clothes. He ate a hearty dinner before retiring early to get ample rest and time to finish up any small preparations in the morning. 

  He woke up before the sunrise. 

  Gavin was sitting on a chair in the living room, practically jittering. 

  “Are you ready?” he asked. Ryan holstered his guns then pulled on his coat to conceal them. He tucked his mask into his inside pocket. 

  “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  Gavin sat in the passenger seat and directed Ryan to Edgar’s place. It was a quiet place an hour’s drive out of downtown Los Santos. Ryan parked his car a half mile hike away from the safehouse and got out. They would have to hike up the rest of the way.

  He felt anxious the whole way up. Pre-job nerves were always present but he felt like the stakes were higher this time. He actually cared about his employer.

  They reached an uplifted area with a decent view of the front of the safehouse and stopped.

  Two guards bracketed the front door. There was nothing but the sound of wind in the grass and birds to mask the sound of them moving around in the brush, so Ryan had to be extra careful as he set up his rifle. 

  In quick succession, he took out both of the guards. 

  They made their way down off the platform and approached the safe house.

  The door was heavy iron, opened with a keycard lifted from a guard. When he walked in he felt resistance, like he was being pushed backwards by a wall. It took effort, but he eventually was able to shove his way in. When he had both feet planted on the carpet of the safehouse he looked up and saw a sigil painted in red on the ceiling.

  He was only in the building for seconds before the shooting started.

  It was a small building, only one 500 square foot room, but there was three guard plus the man himself lounging around. Ryan had a leg up, so he took out the closest guard but the other two guards and Edgar jumped into action before he the corpse even hit the ground.

  Ryan ducked behind a couch as a spray of bullets fired into the wall behind him. He cursed and drew his glock before peering off the side of the couch and firing to the opposite side of the room. He hit one man and used the momentary distraction of a man crying in pain to duck behind a different couch. 

  The final guard hadn’t seen that Ryan moved, so when he rose out of cover to fire he was able to shoot him. 

  “Vagabond,” Edgar called from his cover. “I just want to talk.”

  “About what?”

  “I’m assuming Gavin sent you.”

  “You assume right,” he said.

  “If it’s money you need I have it. More than Gavin does,” he said. “Name your price to call off this nonsense.”

  “That’s not how this works,” Ryan said.

  “Whatever he told you is a lie,” Edgar continued. “Let’s end this. I can give you a job if you want it.”

  Ryan stalked closer to Edgar’s position, staying low to the ground as he did.

  “You’d be making more money than you could dream of, you’d get higher profile hits. The respect that you deserve.”

  Ryan rounded the corner suddenly and Edgar tried to scramble away. Ryan shot him in the leg and he dropped his gun and shouted in pain. 

  Ryan climbed up, gun aimed at his head, and approached him. Edgar was gripping his wound. His eyes, which seemed to hold no emotion but anger, were trained on Ryan. 

  “Where’s the potion that will put Gavin’s ghost back.”

  Edgar smirked. “The potion that will put Gavin’s ghost back?” he asked, an edge in his voice. 

  “You heard me, asshole, where is it.”

  Edgar started laughing. “You think I kept it? I poured that shit down the drain as soon as the spell was over,” he said between heaving gasps.

  Ryan’s blood felt cold. Gavin was two steps behind him, he feared the look on his face if he turned around.

  Ryan emptied his clip into Edgar’s chest, abruptly ending his mocking laughter. Slowly, he turned to face Gavin. 

  He looked shell shocked. He stared at the bleeding corpse on the floor, still as a statue. 

  “Gav…”

  Gavin turned away from him. “I’m fine,” but his voice was strained. 

  “Let’s visit Jeremy, see if he can brew something up.”

  “If he knew he would have told us by now.”

  “He can do research. Gav, we’ll figure this out. Come on, it’s only noon we can go to Jeremy now.”

  Gavin nodded meekly. 

  He was dead silent the whole drive. Ryan called Jeremy as soon as he had his phone signal back, and Jeremy agreed to meet him in an hour at the storage facility. 

  Ryan changed into civilian clothes before meeting Jeremy. He was was surprised to see Jeremy in civilian clothes, too, rather than the Rimmy Tim garb he was last seen in. A plain grey tee shirt and blue jeans, as well as normal sunglasses perched on his nose.

  “Hey, guys,” he said. His eyes stayed on Gavin, who still hadn’t said a word. 

  “Hey,” Ryan greeted. 

  “Come on. I did some reading while you guys were on your way,” he said. “Not to get anyone’s hopes up but I think I found something.”

~

  Ryan listened to Jeremy with a looming sense of dread. His idea was… dangerous and a hundred different synonyms for terrible. He couldn’t find a spell that would just put him back, but he said that if they killed Gavin’s body then brought it back to life his ghost would probably be bound to his body again. Probably.

  “Like turning a computer off and on,” he said.

  “He’s a human, though.”

  Gavin finally spoke up. “I mean, it’s better than nothing. I’d rather be dead than not be in my body,” he said. 

  Ryan looked over at him sadly. “There’s absolutely nothing else we can do?”

  Jeremy shrugged. “I can look into it, but I’m 90 percent sure this would work. Edgar specialized in archaic magic, though, and Gavin and I know jack shit about archaic magic. I can do necromancy, though. I’ve done it before.”

  “Let’s do it,” Gavin said.

  “Great! I pretty much have everything ready, but the spell needs to be done on a Friday night for it to be effective. Meet me here then,” he said, “and we can do the spell.”

~

  Ryan took a shower when they got home. He stood under the spray, lathering himself until he was confident that all of the magic was scrubbed off his skin. When he felt sufficiently clean he got out and dressed.

  Gavin was laying on the couch watching TV. When he saw Ryan he got up and trailed him to the kitchen. Ryan was filling a glass with water at his sink and Gavin lingered behind him. 

  The sun was setting outside. The lights in the apartment were all off save for a small table lamp next to the couch. Everything felt slow, suspended in time. Outside even the traffic was quiet.

  “Hey Gav,” Ryan said.

  “Hm?”

  “I’m sorry,” Ryan said. 

  Gavin met his gaze and shrugged. “It’s not your fault,” Gavin said.

  “Still. It’s a shitty situation you’re in.”

  Gavin nodded. “Thank you,” he said.

~

 The ensuing days until friday were listless. They spent much of their time apart, on separate chairs and couches, with the news playing. Ryan kept in contact with his contacts for any news about Edgar and what was happening with his crew and, more importantly, if any of them were after revenge but it seemed like his second in command was going to take over and continue with business as usual. He didn’t seem to want to get revenge, he was more concerned with any rival gangs that might try to take advantage of the setbacks caused by Edgar’s death.

  So they stayed inside and watched the news and talked. Gavin didn’t say much anymore, though, and Ryan was beginning to miss the conversations they used to have.

~

  They met with Jeremy first thing in the morning on Friday. 

  Ryan had been anxious all day. He could barely sleep last night, there were too many “what-ifs” bouncing around his skull. What if Gavin died? What if Gavin couldn’t remember him as a human, what if Gavin’s body died but his ghost didn’t, what if it didn’t work, what if Gavin  _ died _ ? Gavin seemed to be feeling the same, he had all week. But that morning he made an attempt to talk to Ryan more. He talked about irrelevant things, mentioning stores on the billboards and rambling about them. Ryan responded. It was a terrible conversation but just hearing Gavin’s voice made him feel better.

  They reached the storage unit and Gavin reached over and placed a hand on Ryan’s arm before they climbed out. 

  “This is it,” Gavin said. 

  “Yep. Hopefully Jeremy’s right about this,” Ryan said. 

  Gavin stared at Ryan for a moment before grabbing his hand and squeezing it. He swallowed hard, overcome with the urge to kiss him. He didn’t, again, but he regretted it as soon as Gavin pulled away and climbed out of the car. 

  He followed Gavin closely as they walked to where Jeremy, as Rimmy Tim, was standing outside of his unit. He let them in. The unit was dark, save for a single lit candle positioned between two connected circles. In the circle on the left was Gavin’s body. He was lain with his legs and arms outstretched, the tips of his fingers touching the chalk line of the circle. 

  “Ready to begin?” Rimmy Tim asked. He gestured to the empty circle. Gavin nodded and moved to lay in the circle. 

  “First I’m going to have to kill your body. For this I’m going to overdose you with secobarbital.”

  Jeremy kneeled down next to Gavin’s body with a needle ready. He injected the fluid into Gavin’s neck and stood up. 

  “Now, you’ll die. You as a ghost should disappear too. That’s when I’ll begin the ritual.

  As promised, Ghost Gavin disappeared. A wave of panic washed over Ryan as the intrusive thoughts bouncing around his head kicked up to 11. 

  Rimmy Tim started the ritual immediately.

  It was somehow scarier sounding than the first ritual. He splashed a pitch black fluid on Gavin every so often that hissed before disappearing on his skin. 

   The ritual went on for a full hour of Jeremy walking around the one circle and splashing the liquid and chanting the same three lines of Latin. It felt like hours before Jeremy finally ran out of liquid. He then stood in the other circle which once occupied Ghost Gavin and shouted “Spirits, I command you to return Gavin Free from the otherworld!”

  Gavin’s body suddenly jerked upwards, gasping for air like he’d just been pulled from water. Jeremy hurried to flip on the lights, and Ryan ran to him. Gavin clung to him, looking startled. 

  “Gav! Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah, brilliant,” he said, but when he tried to stand up he fell forward and passed out. 

  Jeremy explained that he would be down for the count for at least 24 hours. Magic, especially high level magic like necromancy, sapped energy.

  “He’ll be fine, though,” Jeremy assured. “Just put him somewhere comfortable and check on him every so often and he’ll be fine.”

  He got Gavin situated in his bed. 

  Ryan stayed on the couch and fell asleep. Gavin was alive, and while they weren’t completely in the clear yet the confidence with which Jeremy said Gavin would be fine put his mind at ease. And the days of little to no sleep caught up with him.

  He wasn’t sure how long he slept, but it was Gavin that woke him up. He was freshly showered, wearing a pair of Ryan’s pajamas.

  “Ryan?” he said, gently shaking his arm.

  Ryan jerked awake and was immediately filled with relief at the sight of him. “Morning,” Ryan said. 

  “Good morning.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Mm, fine. Little tired but sleeping for a whole day will do that.” He shrugged his shoulders.

  “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” Ryan said, letting out a breath. “Are you hungry?”

  Gavin perked up. “Starved. I seem to recall you promising to get me Chinese.”

  Ryan wasn’t keen Chinese at 10am, but he had promised. After they ate Gavin sat on the couch beside him. 

  They got the work stuff out of the way quickly. Ryan gave him his work bank account number and Gavin had his accountant transfer over the money. The deal was done. Work was done. The job was done.

  “What’ll you do now?” Ryan asked. 

 Gavin shrugged. “I’m not sure yet,” he said.

  “You can stay here if you’d like. While you sort everything out, you know,” Ryan said

  Gavin looked up at him and smiled. He seemed to relax significantly, Ryan hadn’t even realized how worried he was until the tension was gone from his body.

  “Thank you, Rye,” he said. 

  There was a short pause where Gavin stared at him, then made a move.

  It was a quick, hesitant kiss like Gavin thought Ryan might shove him away, but he didn’t pull back very far so Ryan could close the gap again if he liked. Ryan did, and Gavin let his excitement show in the way he fisted his hand in the front of Ryan’s shirt,

   Gavin felt different, now. He was warm and solid, definitely alive and breathing under his touch. He placed a hand on his chest, feeling the rise and fall, the steady thrum of his heart working underneath his fingertips. Gavin pushed his hands in his hair and held him close, even as they parted for air. 

  “Shit, Rye,” he said.

  Ryan hummed and Gavin pulled him in again.

~

  Rumors spread like wildfires in the criminal scene in Los Santos. Once word got out that Edgar had been murdered and Vav was working under the Vagabond now, the amount of job offers sent to them doubled. He ignored most of them, it was mainly small crews that were doomed from the start. One caught his eye, though, from a crew called the Fake AH Crew. 

  Ryan and Gavin both recognized the name. They were up and coming too, but the man who made it was once in the Rooster Teeth Crew, a recently dissolved crew that ran Los Santos for nearly a decade.

  He discussed it with Gavin that evening. They’d discussed joining a crew pretty early on in their relationship. Gavin hadn’t been against it, but he said it would have to be a damn good crew. He’d been enjoying the freedom to do whatever he wanted, even if whatever he wanted was mostly just helping Ryan with his jobs it was his choice to do so. He wasn’t willing to give that up for the first crew that came along. Ryan felt more or less the same. He’d been working alone for the majority of his career and wasn’t racing to change that, but the inclusion of Gavin into his life made him value safety more, and safety was something most easily obtained in a crew. 

  Ryan responded to the offer, and Geoff Ramsey scheduled a meeting. 

  He got home late that night. Gavin was still up on his laptop, but when Ryan came in he abandoned it in favor of trailing Ryan to the bedroom. He collapsed onto the bed and watched Ryan peel off his work clothes and climb in beside him. It was nice to come home to someone who loved him, rather than a silent, empty tomb of an apartment. Gavin scooted close and wrapped his arms around him. 

  “How was your day, luv?”

  “Better, now,” he said, and Gavin grinned. 

  They laid there for awhile. They were to meet with Geoff the next day. Gavin was going to dress up and play Vav, the charming Brit with an affinity for gold and Ryan was going to play the Vagabond, a ruthless killer with no morals. But for now they were just Ryan and Gavin, who found peace and quiet in the chaos of the world in each other. 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween! I hope you all enjoyed this! If you like it please leave a kudos or, even better, a comment! Or follow me on tumblr at [Mcusekat](http://desertsongs.co.vu). I take prompts!
> 
> Thank you again to everyone who read it!! <3


End file.
